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The news made me dizzy.

Submitted entry: Gad, what a day yesterday was – so hectic that I broke my vow to keep content (even recycled Rewind content) coming. It all started when I went to the house at about 9:00 to check mail and start some laundry. There was an email from my brother with the subject line “IMPORTANT” saying that he really needed to get in touch with me and had lost my number – could I email it to him? (I don’t have his number as he shares a house with my dad and stepmom and I don’t talk to either one (never have even met the stepmom)). ANYWAY – I sent an email saying I’d be waiting at the house in a 1/2 hour or so and to give me a call ASAP. I went back to the house, my mind racing worried about what could be wrong. Last time he sent a message like this my grandmother had died. This time he felt more upset it seemed so what could it be?

Sage and I and Paul went back to the house and sat with our feet in the water for a while keeping cool while waiting for the call. A few minutes later he called.

Sean’s not very good at getting into a serious conversation and so still, despite the information he was about to pass on he said “Hi, how’s it ‘goin?” followed after my answer of “What’re you doing?” (waiting for you to call, silly!) at which point he told me that he had some terrible news – that our mom had died.

Now let me preface the rest of this for those of you new readers with the following information. From about 1982 onwards my mom was a 12-18 beers/day alcoholic, hit both my brother and I with belts and wouldn’t stop drinking no matter how much we pleaded and even after my dad left (not that he’s a saint or anything but that’s another story). In 1992 Sage and I changed our telephone number after a pretty rough time with my parents (both of whom drank heavily at the time) and cut off communication completely. I haven’t spoken to either of them since.

So you can possibly see how on the one hand this was a pretty easy thing for me to deal with. In addition, she has been really sick and in and out of the hospital off and on with various breathing problems, and really was (last I knew of her) having a really desolate life emotionally so this was something of a relief – that her physical and mental suffering are over.

So I did fairly well, despite being made somewhat dizzy by the news (I had to sit down – literally) until we started walking home at which point I lost it for a while, beating myself up for not having talked to her and for her not knowing that she was a grandma. Sage was helpful in reminding me why we didn’t talk and also that given the way she was around Sean and I that she was afraid to have Paul anywhere near her and we had agreed to keep him away for those reasons.

Anyway – I left the phone call saying that I’d check into coming up there for the memorial – not that I wanted to go myself but assuming that Sean would need me there.

So then we got on the phone and tried to figure out how to get me to Vermont by Friday. First we checked airlines – cheapest we came up with was $1200 and required 4 hours of driving in Missouri and 2 1/2 hours of driving when I got there. Bus wouldn’t have got us there in time ($600 for a 46 hour trip) and our car needs the back brakes fixed before a long drive. Car rental is out due to cost too so we pretty much exhausted our options even if we didn’t have to borrow money to do anything (which we did).

So Sage and I and Kitey talked for a while and Kitey wanted to know why I was going and I told her to support Sean and that I needed Sage and Paul to come along with me for my support. So then she wanted to know if I needed to be physically there to support him or if he could come here or we could do it on the phone (“I don’t know” I said) and not only that but that I didn’t even know if he really needed me (I just assumed). So I resolved that when he called me in the afternoon I’d tell him what I knew about prices and that if he could help me financially (he offered to) and needed me, I’d come up by bus.

He called at 6:00 and we had a wonderful talk, not just about mom but about how our lives are being. I realized then that I think it takes him a good 20 minutes to get into a serious discussion and usually more which is why often his emails are short and to the point “Not much new here…” And no, he was doing well enough that he didn’t feel I needed to come up and instead we agreed to have a phone date after the service to see how we’re both doing.

So it feels kind of weird in a “What does everyone think of me” sort of way to not go to my mom’s funeral. That’s me, always worrying about what people think. For the same reason I feel weird having a nearly normal day today and only once in a while remember that she’s dead.

But then that’s probably not unexpected given what has happened. In particular, I think that I already grieved for her and that happened almost ten years ago. Sage and I were living in Framingham and I got off the phone after a particularly nasty call (she was drunk as usual) and it was at that point that I realized that the mother I grew up with, the one I loved no longer existed and probably hadn’t since the early eighties. And that was one of the hardest nights of my life, emotionally. I spent a good part of it in tears and most of it really sad. That was the night I gave up ever seeing or hearing from her again.

And that was the person whom I missed yesterday too. And now that she’s dead somehow most of my bad memories have been released and I feel more free to remember her as I like to.

So how do I like to remember her? I like to remember her as the woman who changed my life completely for the good early on by teaching me to read when I was Paul’s age. She read to me incessantly (yesterday I found a picture of her reading to me as a 2 year old – it was really touching). When I was able to read on my own she would help me learn other things – I learned mathematics by playing “Store” with her for household items, giving and receiving change. She helped me write my first book (she did the actual lettering) by picking pictures from magazines on a theme (I chose electricity) and I dictated the text to her. As I started to be interested in more complicated subjects she didn’t know about she got me workbooks on science, dinosaurs and other topics or took me to the library. I still know all the states and capitols and where they are because of the game we’d play with the 50 states puzzle I had back then. I’d close my eyes and she’d take out a piece and it was my job to guess which one. When at five I taught myself to doggie paddle and wanted to know more about swimming she got me enrolled in lessons. She was the facilitator that I try to be with Paul now – helping connect me with information about my interests. And as I look at the old pictures of us together I realize that when I was first born (she confessed later that it was contrary to doctors advice that I was conceived – she was on various drugs for mental illness) she had the same intentions that I have with Paul. To do her parents one better.

So I don’t feel like I need to go to a memorial at all to see her off or pay my respects or anything like that. I intend to be a living memorial to her. To try to carry on the work she started by being the best parent I know how to be – to do what she was doing before she got wrapped up in alcohol and other issues that helped to continue a cycle of suffering for her that didn’t end until a couple of days ago. And in many ways I feel that’s better. I feel like going to Vermont and standing in a cemetery watching her casket be lowered would in many ways be going through motions I feel are somewhat insincere or would be for me considering I’m not a Catholic and it’s a Catholic service.

So in many ways, her passing has been helpful. To her, in my opinion ending the suffering of this lifetime and for me almost freeing from all the bad that is my past twenty years of bad memories and allowing me to focus on what mattered to her 30 years ago and what really matters to me now.